


ghosts

by BigScaryDinos



Category: Black Mirror (TV), Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Gen, Multiple Selves, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 07:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17935745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigScaryDinos/pseuds/BigScaryDinos
Summary: What do people do at funerals anyway?





	ghosts

 

What do people even fucking do at funerals? Cry? Laugh? Pull out their hair? Stefan was far too young to have gone to many. He didn't really know what was expected of him. Was barely able to tie his tie around his neck like an ill fitting noose.   


 

Stefan stood outside the door to the funeral home, alone and afraid with a feeling like he’d just swallowed a peach pit the size of a bowling ball.  He straightened his tie for the tenth time and watched two punk kids come out, crying and barely holding themselves together with heavily tattooed arms supporting the weight of the other. The funeral home itself was an odd mix of Colin and not at all Colin. They were playing Tangerine Dream the way he would have wanted but at a muted volume.   


 

His feet didn’t feel like the belonged to him, felt detached like a doll melted off at the ankles. Like amputations come far too late.   


 

“So young. So young.” A woman old enough to be his grandmother came out with a tissue stuffed up her nose, honking and hooting loudly.  A group of kids younger than he was crowded inside the door frame with foggy glasses taped across the nose. They were both inconsolable.   


 

This was his legacy, this was what Colin left behind. People he’d never know he touched with lines of code written on computers.With days spend pouring over eight bit. These people would think of him after work when they would play Nozedive. They would think of him when they saw an advert for any video games - would it be as good as if Colin has designed it?   


 

Stefan’s mouth burned in a way that reminded him of one night filled with poor choices. Bad decisions. If he jumped who would have come?  His dad? His therapist? Some school mates he barely had talked to through his last few years? Nothing like the turn out for Colin.  His brain ran in circles chasing itself around and around until he was dizzy and felt the dregs of coffee he had drank this morning come to his lips. He hated coffee. He didn't want to feel self pity but the alternative was guilt which itself was eating him alive.   


 

“Hey,” a thick hand clamped onto his shoulder, “you ready?” 

 

Stefan nodded without even noticing who was steering him towards the door, through the carpeted hallway, the music ever so slightly louder. It was smokey and smelled like Dragon Blood incense. Everyone left inside was in black head to toe except for Kitty, wearing a neon yellow dress with a matching hat tilted to the side of her oversized hair.  Her face was a shade of red that shouldn't fit human skin. She moved like a robot turned on too long as she stood at the end of the line of friends and family waiting for hugs and handshakes. A real life haunted house. A nightmare come to life. Mohan’s voice again from behind him - “You just need to pop in for a second.” 

 

A second felt like a million years. It was painful the way that a broken bone hurts. It was like the flu, motion sickness, it hurt him all over from head to toe. He wanted to cry but he couldn’t. It would feel right to cry, but there was nothing wet inside him, even his heart pumped dry. Like the blood inside him had turned to dusty air. His wanted to claw his throat to let the air inside him. Instead he tugged his ear.   


 

There was a middle aged couple clutching hands to their chest in front of the plain wooden coffin and then they too were gone and it was only Stefan and the box. 

 

It was closed which made things better and a touch less real. He couldn’t see Colin. Couldn’t see the way his head had cracked open like an egg. The way his beautiful brains that everyone loved has turned to slush and seeped into the cement. His dead eyes, his broken body. The way the bones poked from here and there - and yet no tears came. 

 

He shuddered. Should he pray? Should he fall to his knees? Should he curse god and shake his fist into the sky. He stared above the box where a string of Polaroids hung limply. Colin as a child, with a high school diploma in one hand and his glass hanging crooked off his ears. Colin holding a hand drawn video game poster. Colin holding a newborn, Kitty sweaty but beautiful laying in a hospital bed with a blanket tucked under her chin. Colin with a beer bottle in one hand and the other around an older man’s shoulders - his father. 

 

Nothing was right. 

 

Stefan pretended to pray. 

 

-

 

“Cheers to a man we’ll never forget and can never replace.” 

 

“Here, here.” Came the chorus of voices around the tablet over filled with remorseful faces looking into glasses and others up into the rafters as if Colin would be there. Stefan could only imagine him clutching the balcony railing and asking something dry and witty. _What is this a funeral?_ Mohan sniffled if only for dramatic effect over the clinking of bottles and glasses as they all met each other mid air. Liquor sloshed around, drops spilling onto the already sticky table.  

 

“I would pour one out - but Colin wouldn’t want that. He’d rather it be put to good use!” Another voice called from the back of the circle, unidentified and faceless he was met with another even louder choir of ‘Here, here!” 

 

Stefan didn’t feel much like drinking or celebrating. He didn’t feel much like doing anything short of going home and crawling under his blankets. He wanted to put Bandersnatch on a shelf and never look at it or any of these people again. If it wasn’t for him and his lofty ambitions Colin would be fine. He would be feeding the baby or watching a rerun on TV. He’d be sleeping with Kitty or dreaming up a new idea. He would be alive.   


 

But now he was in the ground. 

 

Stefan felt sick - unable to control himself anymore he pushed out of the circle. Still amid cheers and toasting, all shouting over each other to top the last story. Colin drunk and yet able to save somebody from getting hit by the bus. Colin pulling together a surprise party for a retirement. Colin's first day on the job.   


 

He dragged himself back towards the bathroom of the bar, and found it locked. The entire thing absolutely barricaded. Bile rose inside his throat and the world spun. He found the glowing red exit sign and pushed himself through it. He hoped an alarm would sound but it was stony silence instead.   


 

In the alley the world was cold and dark and the air hit his face with a slap. He doubled over feeling the urge to vomit pass and replace itself with an entire body pain, a burning that raced from his toes all the way to his face and made it’s home inside his skin. His eyes felt like he had kept them open for way too long. 

 

When he understood it was tears it was too late - they were already streaking down his face. His chin already soaked with his own sweaty sorrow. It hurt unlike a broken bone or a flu. It hurt like a heart attack and he screamed, surrounded by the garbage cans and night air. He clutched his hands over his face and muffled the screams that tore from him one after another.   


 

“Mate, didn’t I tell you - you don’t cry when Pac Man dies. Right? What’s the problem?” 

 

Too real, too outside of his mind he looked around. Sure enough there was a thin stream of smoke drifting up from behind a bin. The man stepped out, his cigarette dangling between his thin lips. 

 

“Stefan man, I told you. It’s all a loop.” The man shook his blonde head from side to side a thin smile across his face.   


 

Stefan was breathless, birds called into the pitch black night. This was impossible. He had seen Colin dead, had seen the box lowered into the ground with Kitty screaming and kicking dirt loose. He had seen the gravel loaded onto the grave site. He felt the soft Earth on top of where the body lay six feet under.   


 

“Next time though, you jump.” 


End file.
